hat winter. New York was sixty
miles away and he did not often care to make the journey. He was
constantly invited to this or that public gathering, or private
party, but such affairs had lost interest for him. He preferred the
quiet of his luxurious home with its beautiful outlook, while for
entertainment he found the billiard afternoons sufficient. Guests
came from the city, now and again, for week-end visits, and if he
ever was restless or lonely he did not show it.

Among the invitations that came was one from General O. O. Howard
asking him to preside at a meeting to raise an endowment fund for a
Lincoln Memorial University at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee. Closing
his letter, General Howard said, "Never mind if you did fight on the
other side."

*****

To General O. O. Howard:

STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONNECTICUT,
Jan, 12, '09.

DEAR GENERAL HOWARD,--You pay me a most gratifying compliment in asking
me to preside, and it causes me very real regret that I am obliged to
decline, for the object of the meeting appeals strongly to me, since
that object is to aid in raising the $500,000 Endowment Fund for Lincoln
Memorial University. The Endowment Fund will be the most fitting of
all the memorials the country will dedicate to the memory of Lincoln,
serving, as it will, to uplift his very own people.

I hope you will meet with complete success, and I am sorry I cannot be
there to witness it and help you rejoice. But I am older than people
think, and besides I live away out in the country and never stir from
home, except at geological intervals, to fill left-over engagements in
mesozoic times when I was younger and indiscreeter.

You ought not to say sarcastic things about my "fighting on the other
side." General Grant did not act like that. General Grant paid me
compliments. He bracketed me with Zenophon--it is there in his Memoirs
for anybody to read. He said if all the confederate soldiers had
followed my example and adopted my military arts he could never have
caught enough of them in a bunch to inconvenience the Rebellion. General
Grant was a fair man, and recognized my worth; but you are prejudiced,
and you have hurt my feelings.

But I have an affection for you, anyway.
MARK TWAIN.

One of Mark